Jazz Blog Archives - Page 8 of 11 | FreeJazzLessons.com

2 Ear Training Exercises – Hear Chord Progressions More Easily

This lesson is the first in a series which presents a method for learning tunes while also developing your ear. The tune “Autumn Leaves” is used as an example. I first learned this ear training method in a masterclass taught by the great alto saxophonist, Phil Woods. Phil sat down at the piano and played…

Jazz Piano Practice Strategy Guide Part 1

If you’re reading this lesson there’s no question that you have a love, a passion, and a commitment to learning jazz piano. You and I have a lot in common in that way! Part of my job, as an online jazz piano teacher, is to help keep you motivated and focused on your musical goals. Now, I…

Jazz Patterns – John Coltrane Style 101

Are you having problems playing jazz patterns, scales, or longer lines at fast tempos? Is your improvisation grinding to a screeching halt when you play over complex chord progressions? Don’t worry, you’re not alone! Today I’m going to try and fix that for you. I’m going to teach you how to play some very effective and…

Premium Jazz Lessons Reviews And Testimonials

The reviews are in for The Premium Jazz Lessons Elite Membership Course. I am completely humbled and incredibly honored that so many people wrote to me and shared their thoughts and feelings on the course. The cool part is these are just a small sample of the reviews! There are hundreds more of them when…

10 Most Popular Jazz Piano Tutorials Of 2013

I thought it would be fun and useful to share a list of the most popular jazz piano tutorials that were published on this site in 2013. I was able to go back and look at my analytics for FJL and see what pages people visited the most. It’s a pretty cool feature and the…

Steely Dan Chords Tutorial: Learn How To Play The Intro To Peg

Have you ever felt bored while listening to a 3 chord pop song? Do you find the chord change bland or repetitive? If you answered yes to any of these questions you’re not alone. Many educated and studied musicians have trouble relating to pop songs because of their lack of harmonic and melodic sophistication. Lets…

Jazz Piano Voicings Video Tutorial – 4 Extremely Useful Chords

If you want to learn jazz piano voicings this will be a great starter lesson for you. By increasing your understanding of jazz piano harmony, chord progressions, jazz piano voicings, and chord voicings as an overall whole you’ll open up an incredible world of self expression. Creative Jazz Piano Is Like Creative Cooking Sometimes I…

Herbie Hancock Chords – Free Video Tutorial

Would you like to learn some Herbie Hancock chords? Do you love the incredible artistry and soul of Herbie Hancock’s music? Well, to celebrate the launch of my new Premium Membership course I created a special free Herbie Hancock lesson for you. I am truly humbled by the love and support I’ve received and continue to…

Your Free Guide To 15 Jazz Piano Legends

If you truly want to learn jazz piano you have to listen to the right people. As your online jazz piano teacher, I want to make sure you are listening to and learning from some of the best jazz pianists who’ve ever lived. What we listen to definitely influences what comes out of our ears…

Jazz Rhythm – How To Practice This Important Skill

Would you like to improve your jazz rhythm? Today we’re going to talk about one of the most fundamental skills that you need to succeed as a jazz piano player. Even though this skill is incredibly important I’m always amazed by how many jazz students seem so ready to blissfully ignore it inside the practice…

13 Killer Practice Tips To Ignite Your Playing Today

Hey Everybody! I’ve been thinking a ton about motivation and inspiration recently. I’ve been super focused creating all the new content for this month’s Premium Jazz Lessons Membership update. I’ve also been doing quite a bit more touring and local gigs recently too. To say that I’m motivated right now would be an understatement! For…

4 Completely Bizarre Gig Stories That You Need To Read To Believe

As I’m sure you can imagine, doing music for a living can be very fun. Although, 95% of the career has been really enjoyable there have been times that have not always been filled with sunshine. In fact, after 2,000+ gigs around the world there have been a fair share of completely bizarre and utterly…

All The Things You Are: Jazz Piano Lesson And Reharmonization

I get a lot of requests from people who ask me to teach more jazz piano arrangements. I always aim to please! So, today I thought it would be fun to teach you guys a bunch of new jazz piano chords and reharmonization tricks using the tune All The Things You Are. This is a tune…

New Beatles Piano Lesson And Some Super Exciting News

Hey Everybody! Today I’ve got 3 free piano lessons for you (including a Beatles piano lesson) and a bunch of awesome news to share with you too. So you’ll want to make sure you read this whole article. A Brand New Online Piano Website A few months back I purchased the rights to a brand…

5 Classical Pieces That Helped Me Become A Better Jazz Musician

In today’s jazz lesson I wanted to go in a bit of a unique direction and discuss something I haven’t talked about too much before on this site…classical music. As I’m sure most of you know, 90% of my gigs these days are in the jazz, blues, and rock genres of music. It’s what I…

Dominant Jazz Piano Chords – The Ultimate Guide

Hey there! Welcome to this free jazz piano chords voicing tutorial. We’re going to explore some must know dominant jazz chords today. Happy to have you hear with me! In today’s video lesson I’m going to teach you 5 dominant jazz piano chords that everybody piano player must know. We’ll offer cover some piano jazz…

4 Jazz Turnarounds You Need To Know

If you want to successfully learn jazz piano it is extremely important that you spent time learning jazz tunes and studying common jazz chord progressions. The more knowledge of chord progressions you have the easier it will be for you to learn jazz songs efficiently and quickly grow your repertoire. We all want to be…

Ask Me Any Questions You Want

I’ve had the pleasure to spent the last 13 years of my life as a full time musician. From day 1 of my music career my goal has always been to constantly push myself as an artist, learn, and continue to grow while simultaneously being able to put food on the table and pay my bills.…

Some Incredible Testimonials For The Jazz Masters Method DVD

I’m completely honored and very excited to learn that Making Music Magazine has just published a very nice review of my Jazz Masters Method DVD in their latest issue (May/June 2013). Every time I go into Guitar Center and check out new keyboards I seem to always find myself pickup a copy of their magazine. So,…

Sonny Clark’s Blue Minor Solo: Jazz Piano Transcription

Do you like free jazz piano transcriptions? Awesome! Then, you’ll love this Sonnny Clark jazz piano transcription. One of the most powerful ways to learn jazz piano is to transcribe and study the playing of your favorite jazz musicians. It is for this reason that I have included a number of jazz piano transcriptions on this…

Learn A Miles Davis Jazz Lick

One of the best ways to learn jazz improvisation is to really study and model the jazz licks of master jazz improvisers. So, today I’m going to teach you how to play a Miles Davis II-V-I lick. I love this lick because not only is it simple but it’s got some really nice concepts that…

3 Jazz Education Questions Revealed With A Video Response

The goal for this site has been to always provide a 21st century jazz education experience. 🙂 So, in today’s lesson I thought it would be fun to create a personalized video response to some of the questions I’ve received through comments and emails on the site. (video below) Normally, I like to have a…

Jazz Ear Training – 5 Tips For Hearing Chord Extensions

Today I want to tell you how I drastically improved my musical ear by using jazz ear training. Chord extensions, tensions, alterations, color tones, whatever you want to call them, I am always interested! I can’t write enough about this subject of jazz ear training because it’s so important for mastering jazz piano. As pianists…

12 Jazz Questions Answered

You’ve got jazz questions you say? I have jazz answers! Today’s post I’m going to try something I’ve never done before. This will be an experiment of sorts. I’m going to publish and answer several of the email questions I’ve received recently. As I mentioned in my jazz holiday post this site keeps getting bigger and…

How To Mix The Blues Scale With Bebop Over A Jazz Standard

Would you like to learn how to use blues sounds to improvise over a jazz standard? In this lesson I want to talk about some of the discoveries I made on my tours with B.B. King. Most newbies think that there is a big separation between blues and jazz. A Big Discovery From B.B. King In reality,…